Proto-Norse phonology
Proto-Norse phonology probably did not differ substantially from that of Proto-Germanic. Although the phonetic realisation of several phonemes had probably changed over time (as with any language), the overall system of phonemes and their distribution remained largely unchanged. Consonants # assimilated to a following velar consonant. It was before a plain velar, and probably before a labial-velar consonant. # Unlike its Proto-Germanic ancestor , the phoneme was probably no longer a fricative. It eventually disappeared except word-initially. # , and were allophones of , and , and occurred in most word-medial positions. Plosives appeared when the consonants were lengthened (geminated), and also after a nasal consonant. Word-finally, , and were devoiced and merged with , , . # The exact realisation of the phoneme is unclear. While it was a simple alveolar sibilant in Proto-Germanic (as in Gothic), it eventually underwent rhotacization and merged with towards the end of the runic period. It may have been pronounced as or , tending towards a trill in the later period. Traditionally, ʀ (a small uppercase R) has been used to represent this sound in early Norse inscriptions. Vowels The system of vowels differed somewhat more from that of Proto-Germanic than the consonants. Earlier had been lowered to , and unstressed and had developed into and . Shortening of word-final vowels had eliminated the Proto-Germanic overlong vowels. | |} # had developed from through a-mutation. It also occurred word-finally as a result of the shortening of Proto-Germanic . # The long nasal vowels , and occurred only before . Their presence was still noted in the 12th century First Grammatical Treatise. # All other nasal vowels occurred only word-finally, although it is unclear whether they had retained their nasality in Proto-Norse or had already merged with the oral vowels. The vowels and were contrastive, however, as the former eventually developed into (triggering u-mutation) while the latter was lowered to . # The back vowels probably had central or front allophones when or followed, as a result of i-mutation: #* > , > #* > , > (later , ) #* > (later or ) #* did not originally occur before or , but it was later introduced by analogy (as can be seen on the Gallehus horns). Its allophone was probably , later . # Towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, stressed underwent breaking, becoming a rising diphthong . # Also towards the end of the Proto-Norse period, u-mutation began to take effect, which created rounded allophones of unrounded vowels. Diphthongs At least the following diphthongs were present: , , , . # was later rounded to due to u-mutation. # eventually underwent breaking to become the triphthong . This was preserved in Old Gutnish, but simplified to a long rising or in other areas. # As occurred exclusively in environments with i-mutation, its realisation was probably fronted . This then developed further into , which then became . Accent Old Norse had a stress accent which fell on the first syllable. Several scholars have proposed that Proto-Norse also had a separate pitch accent, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and has evolved into the tonal accents of modern Swedish and Norwegian, which in turn have evolved into the stød of modern Danish.Kock, Axel, 1901: Die alt- und neuschwedische Akzentuierung. Quellen und Forschungen 87. StrassburgHamp, Eric P., 1959: Final syllables in Germanic and the Scandinavian accent system. I: Studia Linguistica 13. S.29-48. Another recently advanced theory is that each Proto-Norse long syllable and every other short syllable received stress, marked by pitch, eventually leading to the development of the Swedish and Norwegian tonal accent distinction.Riad, Tomas, 1998: The origin of Scandinavian tone accents. I: Diachronica XV(1). S.63–98. Finally, quite a number of linguists have assumed that even the first phonetic rudiments of the distinction didn't appear until the Old Norse period.Kristoffersen, Gjert, 2004: The development of tonal dialects in the Scandinavian languages. Analysis based on presentation at ESF-workshop 'Typology of Tone and Intonation', Cascais, Portugal 1–3 April 2004. http://helmer.hit.uib.no/NTT/Cascais/0404ManusCascaisRevised.htm.Elstad, Kåre, 1980: Some Remarks on Scandinavian Tonogenesis. I: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language and Linguistics 3. 61-77.Öhman, Sven, 1967: Word and sentence intonation: a quantitative model. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress and Status Report, KTH, 2-3. 20-54, 1967., 8(2-3):20-54.http://www.speech.kth.se/qpsr/pdf/1967/1967_8_2-3_020-054.pdfBye, Patrick, 2004: Evolutionary typology and Scandinavian pitch accent. Kluwer Academic Publishers. http://www.hum.uit.no/a/bye/Papers/pitch-accent-kluw.pdf. References